In January, the Google patent machine churned out this latest patent entitled “transportation-aware physical advertising conversions.” The patent describes a method of weighing the profit an advertiser could expect to make from a potential customer, the likelihood of that sale being made, and the cost of transporting the customer to their location. With that information, a kiosk or phone app could then determine whether it would be cost-effective to offer that particular customer a free (or low-cost) ride to an advertiser’s location.
The abstract notes that “the calculation may consider various factors including a consumer’s current location, the consumer’s most likely route and form of transportation (such as train, personal car, taxi, rental car, or shared vehicle), the consumer’s daily agenda, the price competing advertisers are willing to pay for the customer to be delivered to alternate locations, and other costs.”
Notably, the program would take into account alternative transportation options, as well as integrating bidding among multiple advertisers. Consumers looking to purchase high-end clothing, for example, might lead to dueling offers between Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s.
What’s most exciting is that this patent foreshadows the future integration with Google’s driverless car. Google is not alone in its development of driverless cars; several major car companies have recently unveiled their own vehicles with an “auto-pilot” feature. While this technology is still far from perfect – the cars often require driver “intervention” to change lanes and navigate other situations – it has made great strides just in the past year alone.
One obstacle to getting driverless cars on the road, aside from issues with public perception, is the legal reform that will have to take place before driverless cars are allowed to operate freely on public roads. Our home city of Ann Arbor is taking a front seat in the development of this technology with a commitment to introduce 2,000 driverless cars to its roads over the next eight years. The DMV is currently reviewing changes to rules to allow for the testing and driving of driverless cars on public roads by private companies, and those changes are expected to be adopted by January of next year. Despite these regulatory complications, the general consensus is that automated cars are the way of the not-so-distant future, and Google’s latest patent provides a glimpse into the world of exciting technological innovations that will come along with them.